2012 Photo Contest Winner Brings Focus to Farmland

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2012 TN Home and Farm Photo Contest Winner

Elizabeth Smith jokes that she never wins anything. “I always say if it was my name and one other person, they would win.” So when the stay-at-home mom decided at the last minute to enter the 17th annual Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation Photo Contest with a photo of her uncle, a farmer for more than 40 years, she never expected to win the grand prize.

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“My mother told me about the contest, and of course I waited until it was almost over,” Smith says. She focused on the farm category and asked her uncle, Ike Turner, if she could take pictures of him on his farm with her Nikon D7000 camera. “I just wanted to follow him around in his natural habitat – doing what he does.”

What was planned as a 20-minute visit turned into a daylong event with Turner proudly showing off his crop of soybeans, which did well despite this year’s drought.

“It was something simple that turned into a really great memory,” Smith says. “I brought my 7-year-old son with me, and when we went home, he said it was the best day ever.”

Smith took hundreds of photos, but the winning image captured how proud her uncle is to be a farmer. “He is the epitome of a Southern country farmer,” she says. “He has a heart of gold, and I am so thrilled for him.”

Photography has become an enjoyable self-taught hobby for the Davidson County Farm Bureau member. When she found out she won this year’s contest, Smith was utterly shocked. “I was just so honored and excited for my uncle,” she says.

Smith had a lot of stiff competition this year with more than 1,600 photos submitted. Winners were chosen in three categories by judges from Journal Communications, the publisher of Tennessee Home & Farm.

And don’t put those cameras away just yet! Look for an entry form for the 2013 photo contest in our spring issue.

Take a look at some of the other grand prize winners and honorable mentions from this year’s contest: Grand Prize WinnersFarm Honorable MentionsHome Honorable MentionsTennessee Honorable MentionsEntries That Made Us Smile

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